Perhaps due to the reaction after the excitement, the lads ceased to chat together, and leaned over the bows, alternately watching the phosphorescent sea and the horizon above which the stars appeared dim and few.
Fitz looked more thoughtful as the time went on, his own words seeming to repeat themselves in the question—Who knows what might happen?
Once they turned aft, to look right astern at where they caught sight once or twice of the gunboat’s light. Then it faded out and they went forward again, the schooner gliding swiftly on, till at last the mate’s harsh, deep voice was heard giving his orders for an alteration of their course.
It was very dark inboard, and it was not until afterwards that the two lads knew exactly what had taken place. It was all in a moment, and how it happened even the sufferer hardly knew, but it was all due to a man having stepped in the darkness where he had no business to be; for just after the giving of the order, and while the spokes were swinging through the steersman’s hands, one of the booms swung round, there was a dull thud, a half-uttered shout, and then a yell from one of the foremost men.
“Man overboard!” was roared, and as the skipper ran forward, after shouting to the steersman to throw the schooner up into the wind, another man answered his eager question with—
“It’s Bob Jackson, sir. I saw him go.”
The captain’s excited voice rang out mingled with the shrill whistle of the boatswain’s pipe, and then to be half-drowned by his hoarse roar as the men’s feet pattered over the deck, now rapidly growing level as the pressure was taken off the sails.
“Now then, half-a-dozen of you!” came hoarsely. “Don’t stand staring there! Are you going to be all night lowering down that boat? Sharp’s the word! I am going to show you the way.”
As he spoke, Fitz had a dim vision of the big bluff fellow’s action, as, pulling out his knife, he opened it with his teeth.
“Sharks below there!” he roared. “’Ware my knife!” and running right astern he sprang on to the rail, looked round for a moment, fixed his eyes upon a luminous splash of light that had just taken Fitz’s attention, and then sprang overboard into the black water, which splashed up like a fountain of fire, and the bluff sailor’s figure, looking as if clad in garments of lambent gold, could be seen gliding diagonally down, forming a curve as it gradually rose to the surface, which began to emit little plashes of luminosity as the man commenced to swim.